Angie Bastian, entrepreneur, co-founder and namesake of Angie’s BOOMCHICKAPOP, took a kernel of an idea and popped it into one of the fastest growing brands of natural popcorn. She and husband Dan founded their snack company in their Mankato, MN garage in 2001 as a means of creating a college fund for their children. Their gluten free, non-GMO, whole grain popcorn is proudly sold in natural food, grocery, club and mass retail outlets nationwide with a product presence in Canada, South Korea, Peru, Japan, Taiwan, the Caribbean and Mexico. The company is constantly innovating and is one of the fastest growing and most successful popcorn brands in the market today. Angie’s BOOMCHICKAPOP is loved by fans as an empowered, spirited brand that represents authentic, real food that delivers on the attributes of clean, transparent labeling and great taste experience. The company has twice won Star Tribune’s Top workplace honors. Angie herself is a recipient of the 2015 ACG BOLD Award for corporate growth and Connect Business Magazine’s 2012 Person of the Year. Girl Scouts honored her as a Pioneering Trailblazer and she is a 2015 Inductee to the Minnesota Women’s Business Owner’s Hall of Fame. She has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Forbes Magazine and appeared on the Martha Stewart Show. Her products have been recognized and awarded by numerous national publications and media. To learn more about Angie’s BOOMCHICKAPOP, visit boomchickapop.com or visit the Angie’s BOOMCHICKAPOP Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.

As Chief Executive of Real Good Foods, Bryan has the privilege of working with an exceptional team of food professionals that are helping change how comfort food can be Real Food You Feel Good About Eating. Prior to RGF, Bryan has led 3 other food companies from early stage to strategic acquisition. Bryan has also served as an executive at AdvancePierre Foods prior to it being acquired by Tyson. He is also the Managing Partner of Slingshot Consumer Partners that invests and helps in early stage food companies. Bryan has a JD/MBA in finance from Loyola Law School and Loyola Marymount University. He earned a BA in International Economics from UCLA and lives in La Canada, CA with his wife Teresa and 2 children.

Alexander Duong is a California native, focused on building sustainable, scale-able supply chains. He started his journey in natural foods at Whole Foods, supporting the Specialty Regional Leadership Team in the Southern Pacific Region. He later joined the founding team of Thrive Market and led the Procurement Team, managing and executing distribution and inbound supply chains. Most recently, he has worked on launching The Goods Mart, a socially conscious convenience store. The Goods Mart has curated mission driven upgrades to standard store staples that are not only delicious but also better-for-you and the environment. The Goods is a new kind of destination where neighbors get to know each other while grabbing a sustainable coffee for $1.25, a dye-free candy bar, a tasty local artisan sandwich, chips, or the essentials – eggs, toilet paper, and milk – all the while giving back to local charities. There are two TGM locations: Silver Lake, CA and New York, NY. He is also launching a brand, Ancient Provisions, seeking to reinvent your pantry using affordable, nutrient dense ingredients, starting with salty snacks, launching in 2019.

Pete Speranza, A native New Yorker, joined General Mills 21 years ago. He spent his first 15 years honing his skills in supply chain/engineering across all the General Mills platforms and temp states while receiving an MBA from the University of Minnesota. From there, He took on a business development role and helped to create and shape the General Mills venture arm called 301INC. He currently leads a lot of the scouting activities and manages the supply chain efforts across the portfolio. Pete also has a lot of passion about helping the local food innovation ecosystem and has founded the food division for the largest state-wide innovation competition in the country called the MN cup. He is also a food innovation thought lead and has spearheaded a vision of creating a national recognized food innovation hub for the state of Minnesota. This effort has cultivated into a local organization called Grow North. A fun fact about Pete is his first career was as a professional ice hockey player which took him around the world.